New Research- Do Social Media Support 'Social' Change?

In a recent article published in the peer reviewed proceedings of the Canadian Communication Association Dr. Ataharul Chowdhury and Dr. Helen Hambly-Odame explore the topics of social media and social change. By critically analyzing the change processes in agriculture and rural development they found that having access to new media does not necessarily actively encourage social and collective change.

Find the article here.

New Article Published: Transforming roles of agricultural extension agency...

In their recent article published in The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, Dr Chowdhury and Dr Helen Hambly Odame raised several critiques on roles of agricultural extension agency in facilitating and strengthening agricultural innovation in Bangladesh. The authors concluded that the public-sector agency encountered several challenges in supporting innovation as a collective action that would satisfy needs of different stakeholders. The authors argue that there is a tendency of the extension agency to remain in a linear paradigm of information dissemination, and does not foresee extension methods (e.g. training, demonstration) as the facilitation of interactive learning and knowledge embedding processes. 

Based on these findings, we get some hints on how the public-sector extension agency would use the new ICT and social media for enabling innovation in Bangladesh.  In this particular case, this is plausible that extension agency (if get access to) would use social media to perform their traditional communication tasks, such as information dissemination. Nevertheless, this is an important question to ask, if we want to harness the power of new media for strengthening agricultural innovation. 
  
Article

Research Project Launched

Practices and Potential of Social Media for Enabling Agricultural and Rural Innovation System

The lines of communication between towns, cities and entire nations are merging. We increasingly live and work within a 'communication media' landscape. Web 2.0 tools and software influence many aspects of communication providing users with more opportunities for informal and interpersonal approaches to information-sharing. We can witness transformations in top-down, and corporate-based communication processes to a more individualized, participatory and democratic approach whereby users are creators, consumers and repeat innovators of the web content. Social media tools provide ease of contact and convergence between distant communities, different ideas, cultures, and stories at a rate much faster than ever before!

But do we really understand how these media are influencing rural areas that are historically less likely to have reliable internet connectivity?
How are social media engaging stakeholders of agri-food and rural sectors for dialogues over new ideas, networks, and opportunities?
How do social media leverage intermediary functions for enabling agri-food and rural innovations?
How are new technologies such as, mobile phones changing (improving or not) agriculture and other domains of livelihoods in rural areas?

The researchers of the University of Guelph strive to explore answers of these questions through a project launched in the spring of 2012. For further details, please see project description, and project team.